Indeed. Maybe they have locked up the wrong people

Open the gates!

MORE than 100 people have gathered outside a detention centre in Sydney, calling on the Federal Government to free all asylum seekers.

Pump some borrowed thousands into a bank account pronto! Send granny off to the nursing home and give these people somewhere to live! And what’s with all this English being written bloody everywhere you racist, heartless thugs?!?

“The Gillard Government should be locked up for crimes against humanity,” the chick speaking for this rabble said.

However, by “rabble” it should be made abundantly clear we’re not talking about the folks inside the detention centre.

No. Let’s follow the logic of the people outside the detention centre.

By letting out the asylum seekers before it can be verified exactly who they are, the mob is basically saying anyone and anything can freely enter Australia.

That’s the deal if you go by their argument.

Oh ye heart harks for the bliss of yonderyear, when man and beast freely roamed the gentle mother earth godess.

So why even bother with, oh I don’t know, how about we start with passports? That’s right, just get on the plane with the only question asked being, “Would you like a blanket?”

We’ve a beautiful harbour, the world’s best, so just sail right up!

And why stop there? By arguing for the asylum seekers’ immediate release, they’re arguing for no border controls whatsoever effectively.

So load up the guns, the drugs, the exotic species, chuck in a few child soldiers, the odd bio-weapon and let’s have a free for all!

Or maybe not.

Locked up? Yes. That mob should be. In a loony bin. For crimes against intelligence.

$10,000 worth of free goodies if you come to Australia… “illegally”, that is

So don’t be a mug and use the proper channels; it’ll take forever anyway. Sure, you might be unlucky and be one of the 600 or so who’ve drowned at sea thanks to the shoddy boat you commissioned in Indonesia, but hey, if you make it (and statistically you probably will) you’ll get free money for life, a house fully set up, the kids will be educated at virtually no charge (and besides, you’re getting paid to do nothing anyway), you’ll have free top-notch healthcare, and you can bring the entire extended family over after you’ve settled in.

Heck, you won’t even have to learn English or change your customs one iota if you don’t want to. And all the assistance you could ever need will be provided free of charge in the language of your choice. It’ll be like a home away from home, only much, much more comfortable.

It’s a money back guarantee… and then some. It’s foolproof. Don’t think of the $10,000 you pay to the people smugglers as a fee for them. Think of it as a down payment for your permanent holiday courtesy of the Australian taxpayer.

Not actually in need of asylum? Not actually a refugee? Relax. There are lots of kind folk who can help you once you’re here to come up with a story plausible enough – and trust me, no one’s asking for a Hollywood script if you catch my drift – to convince the sympathetic immigration officer who needs to get you out of the detention centre pronto before the next boat arrives.

Remember, you’ll have thrown your documents overboard before we come to pick you up and believe me, no one’s really interested in checking up on things anyway.

But hurry! You’ve got a maximum of about 18 months to take up this offer for of a lifetime before the current government is turfed out on its ear, although even then, the worst that can happen is you’ll have to slum it on an idealistic Pacific island.

Asylum seeker costs will top $1bn before long

And yet our government will likely never admit they got it wrong by weakening the effective laws that we had. Their heart may have been in the right place but their head was, and still is, in outer space.

ASYLUM seeker arrivals have sparked an $866 million budget blow-out, forcing the Government to rush laws into Parliament begging for more cash.

The Sunday Mail can reveal Parliament will debate the plea for a fresh injection of taxpayer funds this week.

Another boat with 127 suspected asylum seekers was spotted off Christmas Island yesterday.

At the same time the Government confirmed it would ask for another $330 million this year, with the total blow-out rising to $866 million over four years.

Any one else not feeling so reassured the budget will be back in surplus by 2013?

And a good thing, too

The Malaysia “solution” was never a solution. A muddied message at best, the idea to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia in return for 4000 of their refugees reeked of nothingness.

It made no sense.

And Tony Abbott is right to swat it like the mosquito it is.

Better late than never?

So Nauru might be on again…

IF the Opposition agrees to Gillards stinking rotten fish head of a Malaysia deal.

Ugh.

Bit frickin’ late, BTW.

UPDATE

*facepalm*

We were telling idiot lefties like Robert Manne this all along.

Yet another boat

Our PM should hang her stubborn head in shame. How she can look in the mirror is beyond me.

A BOAT carrying 75 asylum seekers has been intercepted north of Christmas Island.

It is the third vessel to arrive in the past week, during which 250 people have been added to Australia’s immigration detention centres.

And add the government’s own estimates of a four per cent kill death rate on top of that.

How many more people are going to die before Julia Gillard reinstates the policies she and former PM Kevin Rudd so naively stripped away?

Greens out out touch: survey

What a shame Labor is so in bed with the Greens, a party that, for example, wants to welcome all illegal arrivals with open arms and minimal checks (well, it’s great actually if you’re not an ALP fan).

IN the debate over asylum all sides believe there is an answer: and they have it. Human rights advocates argue the only humane course of action is to welcome those who arrive by boat.

The large majority of Australians, however, do not see the asylum issue in such straight-forward human rights terms.

A number of surveys during the past 18 months indicate the majority favour policy to deter boat arrivals, including mandatory detention.

An August Nielsen poll found 15 per cent of respondents considered boats should be sent back to sea and another 52 per cent that asylum-seekers should be kept in detention while their claims were assessed.

More detail is available in the Scanlon Foundation surveys, four of which have been conducted since 2007. The just released 2011 findings indicate only 22 per cent favour granting the right of permanent residence to asylum-seekers arriving by boat; 39 per cent favour asylum in Australia, but only on a temporary basis; the remaining 35 per cent want boats to be turned back or the asylum-seeker detained pending deportation.

Add up those last two, both holding reasonable and workable solutions, and we have almost three quarters of Aussies who’d probably agree that Gillard has made an absolute mess – needlessly too.

To be fair, at least PM Gillard isn’t siding with the Greens on this particular issue but her support of weakened laws coupled with her stubborn refusal to reinstate policies that worked is just as damaging.

More than 400 dead, PM…

No Juliar, you’re the PM, it’s your fault

Doesn’t it just make you cringe when you hear stuff like the following?

JULIA Gillard has blamed Tony Abbott for the arrival of two new asylum-seeker boats, saying his refusal to back her Malaysian Solution made him responsible for the unauthorised vessels and all others that would follow.

Memo to the PM: Before your government took power, the boats had stopped coming. The ALP changed the laws, and the boats flooded in.

Do the math.

Former Labor heavyweight, Graham Richardson:

Now Labor brings in legislation that nobody wants into a parliament certain to reject it. This is a form of masochism: it is almost as if the government wants to keep feeling the pain of failure. This is a drawn-out execution of a misguided policy Labor should never have endorsed.

On his Sky show, he mentioned it was the end of a pathetic week in what’s been a pathetic year.

Hear, hear.

It continues to get worse

That patronizing speech to the nation the other day wouldn’t have helped as our embattled Labor party sinks to an historic low of a mere 26%. Combine the Greens, other minor parties, and the independents and you’re at about the same level.

Any kind of “Malaysia solution” or offshore processing solution is off the cards for the moment as PM Gillard still stubbornly refuses to reopen the perfectly suitable and functioning offshore processing centre on the picturesque Pacific island of Nauru.

And no, Juliar. You’re the one in government. You’re the one who wrecked a perfectly good and working offshore processing system that saved countless lives that otherwise would have been lost to the sea. This is your problem to deal with and blaming someone else just weakens your credibility even more (if that’s even possible).

Juliar: you broke it, you fix it

That’s essentially what Opposition leader Tony Abbott could well be telling our PM come Monday.

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has given the strongest indication yet that he will not support the government’s changes to migration laws to enable the offshore processing of asylum seekers.

Mr Abbott said he was troubled by proposed changes to legislation that he said would give “entirely unfettered discretion” to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

The government needs bipartisan support for the proposals because the Greens have ruled out supporting them.

“My difficulty with the government’s proposed legislation is that it does strip out the protections that the Howard government thought were necessary,” Mr Abbott said today.

“The Howard government and the coalition not only has the patent on offshore processing, it’s pretty obvious having seen the legislation that we also have the patent on offshore protection.”

UPDATE

That “strongest indication” is obviously coming from Abbott’s DT blog.

This week in the parliament the Prime Minister has been demanding that the Coalition support legislation to validate the Malaysia people swap that the High Court struck down.

It’s not the opposition’s job to support bad policy from a bad government.

OK, so there’s kind of an out…

Our job is to promote policy that would actually stop the boats and to oppose policy that’s already been proven not to do so.

But really?

Malaysia is not offshore processing; Malaysia is offshore dumping.

That’s not a “strong indication”, that’s a firm NO.

Gillard’s obstinance will cost lives

Just why our prime minister, burdened with a dog’s breakfast of an illegal immigration policy, still stubbornly refuses to re-open the perfectly acceptable, good and working processing centre for illegal immigrants on the beautiful Pacific island of Nauru is difficult to comprehend.

She doesn’t even want to talk about it.

No, she wants Malaysia but the High Court said NO because Malaysia does not provide acceptable living conditions for refugees and asylum seekers.

She wants Manus island but the PNG government said NO, and it’s not the safest place anyway.

She wants East Timor but they weren’t even properly consulted, and they too said NO.

But just what IS her problem with Nauru?

Does it really matter where offshore the processing centre is?

The point is, is that when it’s offshore, that sends a key message to the people smugglers and their customers: You won’t make it to Australia.

It worked.

The boats stopped and hundreds were spared the horrifying death of drowning at sea.

That’s all that Gillard’s lack of policy has really done – killed hundreds.

Australia takes in a fixed number of refugees and asylum seekers per year.

If they come illegally by boat, that means someone in a refugee camp – say in Malaysia or Africa – who’s set to come here legally is forced to wait even longer.

Thus, the Gillard government’s policy can hardly be considered humane.

Real refugees and asylum seekers are given the cold shoulder over those with $10,000 or likely more who then further insult our system by throwing away their documents.

If they make it at all that is.

But don’t worry yourself, Julia.

Today we read that just as you appear not to (deeds, not words, PM), some of them don’t care if they drown whilst trying to get here, either.

UPDATE

Meanwhile, as the government dithers over policy and pride…

MORE than 600 boatpeople a month would flood into Australian waters unless offshore processing is revived as a policy option, Tony Abbott was told by government officials today.

Labor has been warned, and the Opposition Leader was today also told, that onshore-only processing would overwhelm the immigration detention network within about one year.

And, inevitably, the asylum-seekers that were part of that influx would be released into the community, with the potential for long-term cultural change and European-style disharmony in Australia, Mr Abbott was told in a special briefing by government officials in Brisbane this afternoon.

Those would be the government officials Gillard sent to Abbott after his offer to help.

The PM is in a lose-lose situation. She desperately needs to re-open the processing centre on Nauru but doesn’t have the humility to do so.

It would be a much easier decision for a new Labor leader/PM.

Come to Australia: buy now, pay later

With the government’s illegal immigration policy in tatters, the people smugglers are really starting to have a field day.

PEOPLE smugglers are offering asylum seekers in Indonesia passage to Australia by boat for as little as $US500 ($468) upfront, with the rest being paid after they are granted residency and find work, Afghans in Cisarua, West Java, have said.

The revelations of the ”travel now, pay later” scheme came as the asylum seekers expressed their delight at the High Court’s decision to quash the so-called Malaysia solution and predicted a fresh influx of boat arrivals.

Pity the poor sods trying to do the right thing by putting themselves on the official waiting list.

Gillard has turned immigration into a sick joke. Just how many more will die at sea in the near future we’ll never know.

UPDATE

I can’t help wondering how the people smugglers will ensure payment once their clients arrive in Australia. Keep one family member back as collateral?

Either way, if the new scheme really is the real deal, we’re looking at Aussie taxpayers money, in the form of welfare payments, going straight to people smugglers.

Credit where it’s due

A few weeks ago, it seemed so unlikely that we’d all stop talking about PM Julia Gillard’s carbon dioxide (an essential mostly natural trace gas) tax anytime soon.

But the ranga has pulled a miracle and swept it aside with her Malaysian solution of FAIL!

That takes real anti-skill.

Add Malaysia to the list

Whether or not you think the High Court is acting like a bunch of activist do-gooders or whether they’re just actually doing their job of interpreting the law, it’s fair to argue this government is a mess.

But of course, the defunct asylum seeker deal with Malaysia – well, partially defunct since we are still obligated to take “their” 4000 – is just one more increasingly (jeez, what’s the word?) b.i.g. stuff up for a government that couldn’t get things wronger if they tried their little ideologue hearts out.

Previously, we had this list, reprinted below.

• Grocery Watch: useless
• Fuel Watch: useless
• The failed bank reforms
• The hatchet job summit of our best and brightest
• Cash for clunkers: useless and severely impacted the used car market
• Only 38 out of a promised 260 childcare centres built
• A mere 70 out of a promised 2650 trades training centres opened
• Just 11 out of a promised 64 GP super clinics built (with inadequate after hours services)
• Free computers in schools that parents are now charged for ($1.4 billion over budget, too)
• The $16 billion BER that delivered so many essentially useless and/or substandard buildings
• The $50 billion of money we don’t have to fund an NBN we neither want nor need
• The pink batts debacle in which four people lost their lives and which has ruined an industry
• All those asylum seeker boats – more than 200 dead
• The failed detention centres in East Timor and Manus Island… and the perfectly good yet closed one on Nauru
• The likely-to-fail and dubious refugee swap “deal” with Malaysia
• A foreign minister not allowed to do his job
• Attacking our biggest industry: driving mining investments offshore due to proposed over taxation and over regulation whilst being in bed with the Greens who want our $50 billion per year coal industry – our largest exporter – gone
• In bed with “Independent” MP Tony Windsor who just sold his farm to the Chinese (he’s sold a farm to a mining company before, too), then bought three more – prime grazing land – that just happen to have various exploration licenses on them (he claims he didn’t know)
• That painful and ridiculous Murray River Basin Scheme that was to take desperately needed water from our farmers and then literally flush it away (until the rains came and blew the global warmists’ dud unending drought scare campaign out of the water)
• A $20 billion budget surplus turned into a $150 billion budget deficit in just four years
• That useless carbon tax that she promised she wouldn’t introduce that won’t do a damn thing to the world’s temperature but will, even at its artificially low starting price, cost families $2000 per year, make 90% of them dependent on welfare, and possibly shut down our biggest power station
• The $90 million given to Tim Flannery’s dud company with a plunging share price to match (not to mention the extra $720,000 he’s receiving to promote her carbon tax grab)
• And just this week, the destruction of an entire industry – live cattle exports – essentially by decree, a cruel 24 hours before many head of cattle were to be shipped off, and based on five-year-old footage that the ABC may have been sitting on since January

+1

Malaysia. Well, kinda. It’s on that list, ‘cept now it’s official. In fact, “dubious” is hardly the right adjective to describe it these days.

Anyway, if you really want a bona fide +1, how about the following?

Greg Sheridan makes a compelling argument highlighting the largely unreported woes of Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

It’s grossly understaffed, poorly financed, and in many cases not even utilised as both Labor’s Rudd and Gillard have repeatedly made policy announcement on the fly, almost as if they’re trying to rule by decree rather to go through the proper procedures.

Bad process leading to bad policy has characterised the entire life of the Labor government and it is demonstrated in a remarkable US diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks. On June 10, 2008, the acting US ambassador in Canberra, Dan Clune, sent a cable to the State Department trying to explain then prime minister Kevin Rudd’s initiative, announced in Japan, to form an international commission to advance nuclear disarmament. Amid the many sexy revelations in WikiLeaks, this cable has not got the attention it deserves. Its most serious revelation is that the US was not consulted, or even warned, until after Rudd had made the speech announcing the commission. That is an astonishing way to treat our closest ally and, as Clune comments, it made the achievement of the commission’s objective far more difficult.

The cable also reveals the Rudd government made strenuous efforts to get the Japanese to co-announce the move and they refused. Instead of taking more time to prepare it properly, Rudd was determined to use the “catalytic moment” of visiting Hiroshima to make the announcement. This seems to be a characteristic episode of a determination to dominate the 24-hour media cycle triumphing over the proper preparation and process that would be most likely to yield effective policy.

But in terms of DFAT, perhaps the worst revelation in Clune’s cable is this: “No one in the Prime Minister’s office had consulted the (Arms Control and Counter Proliferation) Branch (of DFAT) in advance.”

That info was gleaned from the #1 bunch the MSM love to hate – Wikileaks.

It’ll be interesting one day if or when we get to read the cables commenting on Gillard’s Malaysia brain-fart.

What’s the bet DFAT was effectively kept out of Labor’s loopy loop on that one, too?

To Nauru… or not? [updated]

First up, it was a 6-1*, not a 7-0 decision by the Australian High Court yesterday that ruled it unlawful for the government to send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia as part of the five for one swap deal we had with them (the five part still must be honoured however).

But here’s the real jam.

Yesterday it was reported that the High Court ruled that processing asylum seekers at the unused detention centre on the Pacific island of Nauru (like we did before) was OK.

Yet today we read that there’s a good chance the only offshore island we could now legally process asylum seekers on would be New Zealand.

ANU international law expert Professor Don Rothwell said New Zealand was the only country in the region that would satisfy the criteria set down by the High Court.

The Gillard and former Rudd government made an absolute mess of illegal immigration policy and now…?

Now we have the lawyers involved.

Big time. High Court big time.

What could go wrong?

*Related.

PS Hands up who doesn’t want to be the immigration minister today…

Also related.

UPDATE

Chris Merrit:

And if Labor were to run the Nauru facility in the same way as the Howard government, there is every chance that it would meet the conditions that the High Court imposed yesterday.

That is the assessment of Jack Hoysted, a former member of the Refugee Review Tribunal, who points out that Nauru was run by Australian contractors who applied Australian processes and reported to the Australian government.

The absence of similar standards and processes in Malaysia is the basis of the High Court’s decision.

Lawyers disagreeing; this’ll all certainly be resolved by lunchtime tomorrow, no worries.

UPDATE II

Opposition leader Tony Abbott says he’s sticking with Nauru.